The Hair-Dyeing Saga

Hello to the person reading this post. I am currently feeling rather blue (a bit of foreshadowing, ahem) for leaving this blog untouched for half a year, which isn’t really that new. It’s never intentional, I can almost assure you – but here I am, typing a new post for you to read.

Hair. Hair, hair, hair, the terribly personal tangle of prejudices. Be it black, brunette, blonde, and natural or not, hair would always be the first thing I observe over shoes and clothings on first impressions. Having professed my obsession with hair, I’m gonna share the changes I’ve had done to my hair over the past years.

First, a little background for those who care: The colour’s naturally black. I’ve done rebonding once and smoothing twice sometime around 6-7 years ago (the effect is all gone now). My daily routine includes blow-drying and sometimes straightening with the iron. I don’t believe in regular trimming, and I cut bangs on my own, because hairdressers are evil. (Not most of the time. Only when they cut bangs. But still evil.)

I didn’t realise how fun hair colouring can be until early 2012, when I dyed the whole hair brown.

From this black-haired, sleepy-looking Asian…

…To this brunette, less-sleepy-looking Asian.

The process took a lot of munney andtime (5 hours I’ll never get back), but it was a nice change. People actually say I look less mean (?) when I’m brunette. I kept this hair for the rest of the year, until the colour got discoloured to a shade too light to my liking thanks to the sun and saltwater. I desperately needed a re-dye, but I also decided that I no longer want my long hair.

I cut it short and added orange layers. The whole look wasn’t really planned – it was done at the spur of the moment. I told the hairdresser that I wanted a change, so she just went on to do her thing. Albeit my very own cynical belief that ‘everything unplanned will always go wrong’, it actually turned out quite alright. Orange’s not my favourite colour but I like how it goes hand-in-hand with the brown hair.

It didn’t last long, though, because after a few months feeling ~slightly~ irked about the orange, I decided to dye it a colour closer to my liking.

I dyed my hair with a darker shade of brown (that looks just like black, really) and exchanged the orange for blue. Before putting in the blue (which was Midnight Blue from Directions), I had my inner layers bleached for the longest time – it was kept in for at least 2 hours. The process of colouring your hair an unnatural hair colour is a long, winding road, and there are lots and lots of stuff to read: about colour wheels, what colour cancels which colour, how to bleach your hair to pale blonde/white without frying it, and mixing hair dyes to get the hair colour that you ultimately want, which in my case was turquoise. A full re-dye with the combination of Midnight Blue, Turquoise and Ebony (all from Directions) resulted in the colour that I just, love, love, love.

boop.

What happened after all the changes mentioned above?

It was all was fine up to the orange, but the blue gave me the blues. I’m usually rather plain-looking, so having such bold hair colour kind of goes against what I’m used to. It was hard to wear clothes with certain colours or patterns during the first few months because I don’t like looking too colourful. It fortunately grew on me after a while, especially when a friend said rather frankly: “The hell with what everyone says, just wear what you wanna wear.” Now I cannot imagine how boring I must’ve looked without these colours in my hair, and I’m back to wearing anything I want. Which is good. (And shows how much people’s opinion affect me. Which is not that good of a thing, but I digress.)

For those who are looking to dye their hair, especially to unnatural colours, don’t forget to consider your hair’s health first!! please!! Bleaching can be devastating to even healthy hair, let alone already-fragile hair. Take the time to prep your hair: Use a lot of creambath and hairmask and make sure to use heat-protection spray like these before using dryer or iron. Be sure to set some money aside for the after care, like doing the roots and buying a new set of shampoo and conditioner for your new hair. Find the right shampoo that is not only sulfate-free, but also make sure it serves the purpose of keeping your hair colour from fading. Normal shampoo has substances that can wash out the colour in your hair, especially anti-dandruff shampoo, which is like the kryptonite to coloured hair (but can actually be used if you want to wash out the colour).

Aaand that’s it for now. After the few changes I’ve done, I still don’t know what hairstyle or hair colour fits me best, so I will keep on cutting and growing and dyeing my hair until I find my very own HG hairstyle and colour. (◕‿◕✿)